Queens Crap has alerted us to a new reality show proposal called The Real Volunteers, which would be focused on the repair and recovery efforts of the Sandy-devastated areas from New Jersey to Long Island. From what we can tell from the proposal, it will be a mashup of Paramedics, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and good ol’ disaster profiteering. Sandy victims are certainly no strangers to exploitation, but this seems a little beyond the pale. How could they possibly justify such a show?
It’s a chance to make history, star in a movie and live on in perpetuity. Dan Hendrick, who is currently working on the documentaryJamaica Bay Lives, and the Queens Memory Project are looking for people to share their stories, photos, mementos and thoughts on the neighborhoods stretching from Howard Beach through the Rockaways to Breezy Point. On April 24, Hendrick and QMP partners Queens College and Queens Library will be interviewing past and current area residents during Jamaica Bay Community History Night at the Broad Channel Branch Library. Hendrick noted that this is the chance to preserve local history before it becomes a fuzzy memory. He added that Hurricane Sandy has added a whole new chapter to this project.
Jamaica Bay Community History Night
Broad Channel Branch Library
16-26 Crossbay Boulevard, Broad Channel
Wednesday, April 24
4pm – 7pm | Free
Image source: City Limits – shuttered damaged businesses do not help anyone in the Rockaways
The Times Ledger reports that Senator Joseph Addabbo (D-Howard Beach) has pushed legislation “that would give out $10,000 grants to small business owners with shops damaged by Hurricane Sandy in order to help them fix up their storefronts.” There are many businesses in his district – Howard Beach, Broad Channel, and the rest of the Rockaways – that were badly affected by the storm, and they range from damaged to destroyed. The grants would give many of them the ability to open their businesses again.
A while back we told you about the property buyout plan from Governor Cuomo that would take damaged homes, raze them, and leave the land as a sort of buffer zone against future storms. But WNYC reports on another buyout plan, this time coming from the Mayor’s office. While the Cuomo plan would use that purchased land strictly as “open space for use as parks, wetlands, drainage or other purposes,” the Mayor’s plan could use that same purchased land for development in the future. In the words of Brad Gair, the director of the city’s housing recovery office, “These are valuable properties. There is a limited amount of coastline properties.”
Image source: Gateway National Recreation Area Facebook page – the A train tracks right after Hurricane Sandy
The Times Ledger reports that the damaged length of the A train in the Rockaways should be fixed, up and running by June. This is according to MTA President Thomas Prendergast. We like hearing about progress in the Rockaways, and are hopeful that the restoration of service will be on time.
Image source: Rockaway 100th Precinct Community Affairs Facebook page
WNYC reports that a representative from the Army Corps of Engineers said at the Community Board 14 meeting Tuesday night that the Rockaway beaches probably won’t be back to normal by start of summer. Apparently the beaches out there need a ton – make that 1.5 million cubic yards – of sand; the Army Corps of Engineers will start to add sand at the start of the summer. (more…)
The Museum of the City of New York wants your Sandy photos
The Museum of the City of New York has issued a call for submissions from both amateur and professional photographers for their photos of before, during and after Superstorm Sandy: “…the Museum of the City of New York seeks contemporary photographs of the areas and people affected by the storm – photographs that portray the region before the storm, during the dramatic hours of the storm’s landfall, the immediate aftermath, and the relief, recovery, and rebuilding efforts of individuals, organizations, and government agencies – for consideration for inclusion in an exhibition at the Museum to open in April.” Entry deadline is 12pm March 3, 2013. Photographers, we know you are out there! It’s free to enter, too.
Putting together the Unisphere
We’ve shared this on Facebook and loved it on Pinterest, but we just can’t get enough of this seriously cool image from the time they were putting the Unisphere together – it’s very Erector Set here.
Image source: Queens County Market Facebook page
The Waterfront Crab House in LIC is now open, first time since Sandy
DNAinfo reports that LIC’s Waterfront Crab House is now open! They had their soft opening on Tuesday. It really took a hit during Hurricane Sandy, with several feet of water inundating the historic eatery, causing a shut down of the place and seirous repair work to take place (“new floors, walls and a brand new bar”). Some of their antiques and other collectibles that hung on the walls were totally damaged and had to be thrown out, but some things managed to survive. So, if you were missing the Crab House, it’s time to go back!
If you want excellent beer, come to Queens
The borough has been know for a long time, actually as a place for great beer and a place to drink it – the Bohemian Beer Garden comes immediately to mind (it is one of the best known food/drink spots in Queens, along with Jackson Diner in Jackson Heights, Tortilleria Nixtamal in Corona, and Flushing’s Chinatown). But these days, beer has been “kicked up a notch” in Queens and fantastic craft/micro/nano brewed beer is coming out of the borough, especially in western Queens. There’s everything from Astoria’s own SingleCut Beersmiths to the somewhat mysterious Bridge and Tunnel nano-brewery. Then there are places to drink beer, like The Strand, Astoria Bier and Cheese, as well as the beloved Queens Kickshaw. So yeah, we’re not joking when we say there’s a beautiful beer scene in Queens.
Yoga is all the rage, but you probably knew that
Yoga is a really big deal all around Queens. There are different kinds (Ashtanga, Iyengar, Vinyasa, just to name a few) taught, sometimes a yoga class/session has more of an athletic aspect, while others include a spiritual element to it, too. But in this fast-paced world we live in, yoga can be a welcome change of pace for so many – men and women. We’ve got a list of places you can take a yoga class, as well as some background on yoga and why it has caught on so well in Queens.
Image source: policymic / Photo by Amanda Kirpatrick
The folks from Rockaway Rises let us know about this photography exhibition coming up – the Museum of the City of New York has issued a call for submissions from both amateur and professional photographers. Your images must be of the areas affected by Superstorm Sandy before, during, and after the storm. (more…)
Over the months, we’ve featured a number of maps on QueensNYC – what can we say, we think maps are pretty interesting, especially the interactive ones. Here’s a roundup of maps that have caught our eye – we hope you enjoy them a second time around!
Using this interactive map, republished by the CUNY Graduate Center from a 1943 “NYC Market Analysis” newspaper feature, we can see snapshots of what life used to be like back in the day. The roads looked a lot calmer, with only a few cars and no lane markings; vertical store signs were abundant on commercial streets, too. The original population statistics and real estate information are viewable on the website as well.
